What You Can Do

Global warming can be a daunting challenge to address for an individual. But, there are small actions that each and every one of us can take today that not only help the environment, but also save us money (yes, save money and save Mother Earth!). These actions include things at home, on the road, and in the marketplace. When these individual and seemingly small actions are taken into aggregate, we have immediate results with far reaching impacts that benefit our world. So start today! If you like to procrastinate, then start tomorrow - but remember, "the future will either be green or not at all" - Bob Brown.

At home

Turn off the tap while you brush your teeth. You’ll conserve up to five gallons of water per day. Throughout the entire United States, the daily savings could add up to more water than is consumed every day in all of New York City.

Take a shorter shower and switch to a lower pressure shower head. Every two minutes saved in the shower can conserve more than ten gallons of water. If everyone in the country could save just one gallon of water from their shower, over the course of a year it would equal twice the amount of freshwater withdrawn from the Great Lakes every day. The Great Lakes are the world's largest source of freshwater.

Wash your clothes in cold water. Consumers Union and Coop America did a study which shows that clothes get the same amount of clean whether washed in cold, warm, or hot water. You can reduce your carbon emissions by 600 pounds a year by switching to cold water for every load.

Recycle. If everyone in America simply separated the paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum products from the trash and tossed them into the recycling bin, we could decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills by 75 percent. Currently, it takes an area the size of Pennsylvania to dump all of our waste each year.

Get a free home energy audit. The company Cape Light Compact offers this free service to tell you whether your house is losing heat in certain areas and how to fix these issues.

In the car and on the road

Use your car air conditioning wisely. Did you know that your gas consumption increases by 20 percent while your air conditioning is running? Save gas, money, and the environment by rolling down your car windows and enjoying the breeze.

Avoid speeding in your vehicle. The EPA estimates that you can improve your gas mileage by 15 percent by staying at 55 mph on the freeway, rather than the normal 65 mph.

Get out and walk more. Instead of driving down to the corner market that is only a block away, take a nice walk! Not only is it good for you and you'll feel better, mother nature will feel a whole lot better, too.

At the market

Use a reusable grocery bag. The world consumes over 500 billion plastic bags a year, each one taking an estimated 1,000 years to fully decompose. By taking this simple act, you can reduce toxins entering the oceans and our food source. It is also fun to personalize your shopping bags.

Don’t ask for ATM receipts. If everyone in the United States refused their receipts, it would save a roll of paper more than two billion feet long, or enough to circle the